Monday Confessional #2

(Confession #1 here)

Saturday's memory lapse of shame seemed to get the ball rolling because by Sunday I was a walking, breathing, disaster waiting to happen.

It started out with fun evening plans: attending Portland's Singing Christmas Tree with my sister and her husband Dave, and our friends T.J. and Jana. There was extra excitement involved because our good friend Sairaina was singing in the tree and we couldn't wait to see her perform.

(My husband was not invited because Russ and musicals don't mix well, and even though he loves Sairaina as much as the rest of us, he would rather shoot himself in the foot then spend two hours straight listening to Christmas songs performed live with dancing ballerinas swirling around.)

 So off I went on my own to meet up with Dave and Kelly, happy to have saved money on a sitter and looking forward to an evening out and being able to capture it with pictures for my blog. Which would have worked if I'd remembered my camera. Fail #1. 

Never mind, I could take pics with my phone, I thought. Even though they wouldn't be nearly as good. Except it turned out I forgot my phone too, which I realized when I arrived at my sister's. Fail #2. 

That was a bummer, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my evening, I'd just have to steal Kelly's pics. So off we went, driving up to Oregon City to meet T.J. and Jana. We didn't get very far though before I realized with a sinking spirit that I'd carried my purse inside my sister's house and left it there. Fail #3. 

Me: "Um... guys? It's a good thing you have the tickets because I just left my purse at your house." 

Kelly: "The tickets!! They're in my other purse at home!"

Sometimes it's just not safe for us to be together. Dave gritted his teeth and turned around without saying a word, which wasn't necessary anyway since we both knew he was ready to banish us from the car. 

"I'll buy you a coffee on the way, Dave!", I offered, feeling like such an airhead after forgetting so many things in a row. Kelly ran back inside to grab the tickets and my purse when we pulled back up to their house and only mildly delayed us further when she came back out with not mine, but the babysitter's purse, with the babysitter in hot pursuit behind her. Regular old Laurel & Hardy, we are. 

Unfortunately my kind coffee offer was not to be. Because when we finally arrived at Starbucks and I went to pay for our order I discovered that, for the second time this year, my wallet was not in my purse. Fail #4.

I was actually so embarrassed that I whispered my confession to the barrister, not wanting to forever plummet myself in Dave's eyes. Then I tried to call my sister over to me discreetly but the kind soul behind the counter insisted on giving me the coffee for free instead. 

Dear Starbucks, 

You are awesome.

Me... not so much. 

Thankfully yours,

Jodi

I did confess my lack of funds to Dave and Kelly after that and by the time we pulled up to meet T.J. and Jana we were almost crying from laughing so hard. Which is when Dave knocked his full coffee cup off the top of the car while switching vehicles and dumped it all down the side of his door, splashing his leg. 

And then we just DIED. Even non-self-embarrassers like Dave flub up every now and then! (This did amazing things for my bruised ego.)

I'm pleased to say that after that the evening was catastrophe free. (Except for the small issue of getting in trouble from an usher for taking a picture in the auditorium. No biggie.)

Sisters at large - ready to cause chaos wherever we go. 

Finding Sairaina after the performance.

Me, Kelly, Sairaina, Dave, Jana, and T.J. 

 I LOVED the Singing Christmas Tree, it was totally worth the trauma to get there :)   

Monday confessional #1

It's going to be a double confession day... I was a busy girl this weekend, embarrassing myself all over the place!

First off, Saturday was the Christmas bazaar that Jana and I signed up to be vendors in, and it was so, sooo fun! Jana made the crafts and some treats, I made the rest of the goodies, and we had a great crowd all day, selling most of our items.  

Our table set up the night before, just needing the rest of the baked goodies we'd bring in the morning.

My Swiss caramel - a NZ recipe and utterly delicious.

Ready to sell some goods!

It was while I was at the bazaar that something incredibly mortifying happened. And of course there's a back story...

On the last weekend of October, while Russ and I were door greeters at church, we met a newer attendee named Linda. She visited with us out front for a while and after jokingly warning her that I was terrible with names and asking her not to be offended if I'd forgotten hers by the following week, she laughed and said she was the same way, which led to us spending the rest of the morning repeating each others names out loud every time we ran into each other, and then laughing. (I can be quite the dork in my quest to make a new friend.)

The next Sunday she called me Jodi. I called her Cindy. So close!

The Sunday after that I got it right. Linda. Well done, me!

But apparently after that I didn't see lovely Linda for a while because when she stopped in at the bazaar on Saturday and I saw her, this was the following awkward conversation:

Me (staring at her for a moment in consternation): You look really familiar to me for some reason... do I know you from somewhere?

Her: Hi, JODI.

Me (grasping at straws in embarrassment): Cindy!

Her: It's Linda.

WOW. I guess I have more problems to worry about than just forgetting peoples names. I ALSO MISPLACE ANY RECOGNITION OF THEM ALTOGETHER.

Poor Linda acted very gracious when I stuttered out my apologies but I can only imagine what she was thinking. 

Dear Linda, 

Please forgive me for being an idiot.

I can assure you that I've got your name down pat now.

Love, Jodi

(I'll be back later today for confession #2. )

Awkward & Awesome Thursday

Awkward:
- those moments when your body totally betrays you and your eyes start producing tears on their own accord even though your mind is shouting, "don't cry, you ninny!" Stupid eyes.

Example: Yesterday afternoon my sister-in-law was MILDLY rear-ended as she was waiting to turn into the school parking lot to pick up her kids. I was a few cars behind her, found out right away that she was completely okay and 100% calm, pulled into the lot myself, and then my eyes just turned on the water works. Embarrassing, is what it is.

- Teasing a high schooler when they state the obvious about something, by laughing and saying, "excellent deducing skills", and  the high schooler staring at you and asking you to repeat yourself three times because they don't understand the word you said. Okay, it's not really funny the second time, and definitely not when you have to explain what it means.

- Unexpected morning callers who ring the doorbell when you are visible through the side glass window and can't run out of the room in a panic because you haven't got your bra on yet. Leading you to answer the door with the always graceful "lean & hide" move, you know, where you hug the half open door as you squish yourself into it and act all casual but really don't dare to move a single muscle.

- Calling your mother out on Facebook for referring to her youngest grandchild as grandson #4 when she only has three grandsons (I thought that was highly funny), and then being asked by another commenter why your mother was wrong when you have two boys and your sister has two boys. Oh yes, that's right, there are four of them. I momentarily lost count. My comment back: "I'm special." Sad, but true. 

Awesome:
- Having my Christmas shopping almost done by December 1st. Like, completely done. Yes, it's nice to not have to worry about what to get who anymore, but mostly I feel pretty darn awesome to be so on top of things when I'm naturally such a procrastinator! Hurrah, me! (I always enjoy hearty self-applause.)

- Having my daughter to help me in the church nursery last night when my husband couldn't be there. If I'd known she was so good at entertaining the kids and playing with them the whole time with her endless energy I would have fired Russ a long time ago. I was pretty much forced to play on my phone since she had things so nicely covered... ;)

- Watching Kendall open a card in the mail that contained $40.00, sent by a wonderful young woman who wanted to bless Kendall with money to go towards her American Girl doll she's buying all on her own. To say Kendall flipped would be an understatement. What she did was scream, lose her gum out of her mouth and have it land in her hair, run into the kitchen to show me what she got, trip on the steam mop, and sprawl across the floor. Pretty awesome ;)

- Listening to her genuine gratefulness to God for caring about her and blessing her so much, after another friend heard that she now only needed the money for shipping, and snuck it to her through me after church last weekend. Such a cool lesson at a young age... she worked hard to make most of the money herself, tithed 10%, and then was totally blessed with the rest.

- The two pans of pecan bark I made last night for the holiday bazaar I'm participating in this Saturday. It's GOOD STUFF, people!

Adventures in shopping: Black Friday edition

So here was the plan: I'd meet my mother and sister, sister-in-law Tricia, and Jana at 9:30 pm, we'd drive the half hour to town, and start at Walmart, shopping the 10 pm doorbusters until the electronics came on sale at midnight. Sounds pretty simple right? At least we thought so, none of us ever having attempted a Walmart Black Friday opening before.

Turns out we were a bunch of loony tunes to be so naive because, OH THE INSANITY. We got our first hint that things might not go so smoothly when traffic was stopped a couple blocks away from Walmart's vast parking lot and people were parking on the main road and all the side streets and walking. The cars were so jammed we couldn't even turn around and it took us a full 20 minutes to get through the parking lot close enough for me to drop everyone off, which we finally decided to do after a good 5 minutes of debating whether to completely bail or not. We'd come this far we decided, why not risk life and limb and have a little adventure.

After I miraculously found a spot and waded in, I quickly discovered the masses had already grabbed most of the sale stuff and got in line to checkout, but all was not lost. As it turns out, the way to shop the Walmart sale is to wander aimlessly around the store and find abandoned items you were looking for that other people grabbed and then changed their mind on three aisles later. Seriously, I got all but two items on my list, including the $248 laptop that I was hoping for! I didn't even wait in line for it - I just decided (at 11:57 pm, 3 minutes before the electronics sale started) to go wait by the line of people who already had tickets saving their spot for the computer because they'd been there since probably 7 pm, just in case someone bailed. I was completely shocked to discover that several people must have because I watched them hand out all the laptop boxes to the people waiting and when the line was gone there were still ten left. And I was the only one standing there waiting to see if there were extras!

SCORE, ME! 

What does this mean? I am now the proud owner of my first ever laptop! An HP 15.6 inch screened beauty. Technically it's a Christmas present from Russ (because I sorta twisted his arm to let me get it by saying I wouldn't need anything else under the tree. Which we all know is a lie - of course I need a surprise under the tree!) but I don't think I'm going to be able to wait till the end of December to start playing with it.

We spent the next hour and a half manning our cart in the long and winding checkout line, taking turns going out in pairs to scavenge for more abandoned items left by other shoppers (I'm telling you, it's the way to go.) This led to making new best friends with the ladies in front of us, who brought us iced waters from the Subway up front and refilled them for us a few times too. (Loved those girls!)

After Walmart we took a little side trip to Krispy Kreme at 1:30 am because the hot light was on and we were a little caffeine deficient. 

Peppermint white mochas to revive our sleep-deprived selves.

a dozen fresh doughnuts helped too. 

And then we rocked Target (always way more organized and stocked than Walmart), Old Navy (no lines at all and very well stocked, bought myself two pairs of jeans because they were only $15.00), and Kohl's (also no lines... turns out 2-5 am is the prime time to shop!) before heading back home at 6 am. With a trunk full of presents bought at some pretty amazing prices. I rolled into bed at 7 am and didn't wake up until almost one o'clock in the afternoon. And the rest of the weekend was kind of a blur after that, but it was a fun and relaxing blur.

And now that the shock of the long night has worn off, I'm left with 95% of my Christmas shopping completed, and it's not even December yet. Do you know how often that has happened before?

NEVER. Not even close.

I'm feeling pretty jazzed about that :)

We ate and shopped and ate some more

It's been a full past few days.

2 kid's open house Thanksgiving parties at school. Check.

3 Thanksgivings. Check.

1 all-nighter shopping trip. Check. 

2 books read. Check.

2 evenings of friends over. Check.

4 movies watched. Check.

1 new board game learned. Check.

General lack of sleep and laundry washing. Check and check.

So. We had a great Thanksgiving. (All three times.) First with Russ's family, then with my family, and finally yesterday with our friends, the Cox family. And I can tell you that regardless of the small portions and no seconds that I stuck to, I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in holiday food this weekend.


Darn you sweet potatoes for your power over me!

Pictures from all three Thanksgiving meals. 

It was all so, so good. And so was the company!

The shopping was good too, if you don't mind a side of COMPLETE INSANITY. I'll be back to tell the tale tomorrow, when I'm not so hungover from turkey and three different kinds of dessert :)